Abstract

The representation of the analysed winds from ECMWF and NCEP at surface level is studied for the southeastern Pacific sector (35°S-62°S, 70°W-90°W) during four years (1992-1995). Comparisons are presented between the analysed winds and between each of them and ERS1 scatterometer winds. Daily averaged winds for the four-year period from the analysed winds are also compared with those from coastal weather stations. Although both sets of analysed winds satisfactorily represent the observed winds in the study region, the ECMWF surface winds seem to represent them better. In general higher correlation coefficients and smaller rms difference values, for both wind components were obtained between ECMWF and ERS1 and coastal station winds, compared to those using NCEP winds. The coastal station of Evangelista (52.4°S, 75.1°W) shows relative high correlation with ECMWF, implying that its winds could be particularly appropriate for validation and/or comparison with analysed winds.